Recasting Klamath Dam Removal as Eco-Cultural Revitalization and Restorative Justice through Karuk Tribal Leadership
by
,
Sibyl Diver
1,*
John R. Oberholzer Dent
2,
Daniel Sarna-Wojcicki
3,
Ron Reed
4 and
Cole Dill-De Sa
5 1
Earth Systems Program, Environmental Justice Working Group, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
2
Water Quality Program, Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources, Orleans, CA 95556, USA
3
Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California—Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
4
Karuk Tribe, Happy Camp, CA 96039, USA
5
Earth Systems Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Water 2024, 16(16), 2295; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16162295
Submission received: 11 June 2024
/
Revised: 28 July 2024
/
Accepted: 5 August 2024
/
Published: 14 August 2024
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Contestations: Socio-Technical Entanglements, Politics and Social Mobilisation)
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Figure 1
<p>Former Iron Gate reservoir after drawdown, 2024 (Photo: John R. Oberholzer Dent).</p> "> Figure 2
<p>Karuk aboriginal territory (purple area outlined in bold) and additional tribal lands are located in the mid-Klamath region, downriver from dam removal sites. They include areas around the towns of Yreka, Happy Camp, and Orleans (California and Oregon, US). (Map: Klamath River Renewal Corporation, Berkeley, CA, USA and the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources, Happy Camp, CA).</p> "> Figure 3
<p>Tribal leader and co-author Ron Reed dipnet fishing at Ishi Pishi Falls (Photo: Wingspan Media).</p> "> Figure 4
<p>Based on focus groups and interviews, this diagram shows a simplified model of selected biophysical factors associated with a free-flowing river that affect Karuk cultural resources (not comprehensive). While useful as a schematic, we note that the unidirectional flow of benefits does not represent how Karuk cultural practices, such as coppicing, cultural burning, and ceremony, also shape the system.</p> "> Figure 5
<p>Sunset over the Klamath River in Orleans, CA (Photo: Sibyl Diver).</p> "> Figure 6
<p>Cutting fish with youth for cooking on sticks at Ti Creek traditional foods workshop with Kenneth “Binks” Brink, Jason Reed, and Nate Pennington (Photo: Konrad Fisher).</p> ">
Versions Notes
<p>Former Iron Gate reservoir after drawdown, 2024 (Photo: John R. Oberholzer Dent).</p> "> Figure 2
<p>Karuk aboriginal territory (purple area outlined in bold) and additional tribal lands are located in the mid-Klamath region, downriver from dam removal sites. They include areas around the towns of Yreka, Happy Camp, and Orleans (California and Oregon, US). (Map: Klamath River Renewal Corporation, Berkeley, CA, USA and the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources, Happy Camp, CA).</p> "> Figure 3
<p>Tribal leader and co-author Ron Reed dipnet fishing at Ishi Pishi Falls (Photo: Wingspan Media).</p> "> Figure 4
<p>Based on focus groups and interviews, this diagram shows a simplified model of selected biophysical factors associated with a free-flowing river that affect Karuk cultural resources (not comprehensive). While useful as a schematic, we note that the unidirectional flow of benefits does not represent how Karuk cultural practices, such as coppicing, cultural burning, and ceremony, also shape the system.</p> "> Figure 5
<p>Sunset over the Klamath River in Orleans, CA (Photo: Sibyl Diver).</p> "> Figure 6
<p>Cutting fish with youth for cooking on sticks at Ti Creek traditional foods workshop with Kenneth “Binks” Brink, Jason Reed, and Nate Pennington (Photo: Konrad Fisher).</p> ">
Abstract
:Moving from an era of dam building to dam removal brings additional perspectives to indigenous water governance and hydrosocial relations in the Klamath River Basin (US). This collaborative research initiative with the Karuk Tribe builds greater understanding of the sociocultural impacts of Klamath dam removal and river restoration through Karuk knowledge. Addressing a knowledge gap around the social dimensions of dam removal, we held focus groups and interviews with Karuk cultural practitioners, tribal leaders, and tribal youth in the six-month period leading up to demolition. Extending beyond a focus on infrastructure removal or single-species restoration, we consider how Indigenous environmental relations and cosmologies are embedded in dam removal and river restoration. Specifically, Karuk knowledge shifts the significance of dam removal by elucidating deeply interconnected ecological, cultural, and ceremonial relations that are co-constituted with the Klamath watershed, thereby recasting dam removal as a holistic eco-cultural revitalization initiative. This reconfigures dam removal goals to include improving community health and well-being, enhancing spiritual elements of river restoration, responding to colonial legacies, and engaging tribal youth. In the Klamath case, restorative justice becomes possible through Karuk participation in river restoration to facilitate the revitalization of reciprocal relations held between Karuk people and the Klamath River—including Karuk eco-cultural and ceremonial practices for restoring balance in the world.
Restoration depends on relationships between cultures and between people and the land.-Vine Deloria Jr. (Deloria 1992, p. 48)
We are Karuk-arara... the Up-River people... when the river is strong, the people are strong.-Anonymous survey respondent, Karuk Tribe
Challenging the history of this country is about as easy as getting these dams removed. There needs to be a huge reality check of who we are and what we’ve gone through... I think it is important to challenge the people with pen and ink. The lack of historical perspective is degrading given the disruption of our culture through forced assimilation.-Ron Reed, Karuk Tribe
1. Introduction
The largest dam removal project in history is currently underway on the Klamath River following two decades of tribally led activism, including from the Undam the Klamath social movement (Figure 1). The Klamath River winds for 257 miles from south central Oregon to northern California, and empties into the Pacific Ocean. However, the river today has been dramatically changed. Despite stewarding the Klamath River since time immemorial, tribal communities were not consulted when the four dams now slated for removal were constructed in the mid-Klamath, directly upstream of their aboriginal territory, lands, and waters: Copco 1 Dam in 1922, Copco 2 Dam in 1925, J.C. Boyle in 1958, and Iron Gate Dam in 1964, with production capacities of 20 megawatts (MW), 27 MW, 98 MW, and 18 MW, respectively [1,2,3] Following multiple sets of agreements and extensive regulatory review by state and federal agencies, final approval for removing the four dams was issued in November 2022 [4,5,6].
While these dams were built to generate hydroelectricity, they were not large production facilities; if operating at maximum capacity, they could potentially power about 70,000 homes, although actual production levels were lower [7]. These four dams provided only marginal flood protection, and reservoirs were not used for irrigation or local water supply. Yet, they blocked the passage of fish, thereby contributing towards the listing of Klamath salmon runs under the US Endangered Species Act, and also caused significant water quality problems, negatively impacting the Klamath ecosystem and multiple tribal communities [1,5,8].
Karuk community members and scientists have observed how changes in flow patterns and river morphology from Klamath dams have contributed to salmon and lamprey eel fisheries’ decline, as well as the erosion of cultural sites. This has included changes to seasonal flows, i.e., lower minimum flows in summer and the diminishment of spring flushing flows, as well as changes in daily flow patterns from dam spillage events conducted at regular intervals to increase power production. Karuk community members have discussed how negative impacts to traditional foods, and cultural sites from dams have been compounded by the loss of water inputs feeding the Klamath due, in part, to increased agricultural development and water diversions in the Upper Klamath Basin wetland complexes, as well as the Scott and Shasta River basins [1,9].
For the Karuk Tribe, whose culture is deeply connected to salmon, impairment of traditional foods and eco-cultural practices from dam construction and related developments has had profoundly negative consequences for health, livelihoods, and cultural continuity [9]. For example, the relatively recent construction of the Iron Gate Dam in 1964 dealt a compromising blow to the Spring Chinook salmon run, which was once a principal food source for the tribe and led to the decimation of the run by the 1970s, within the lifetime of today’s Karuk cultural practitioners. Following an accumulation of negative impacts, average yearly consumption of salmon has dropped from what was once estimated to be 450 lbs/person/year historically to less than 5 lbs/person/year today. At that same time, diabetes and other diet-related diseases have taken root in the community and now appear at disproportionately high rates among Karuk people [9,10,11]. Negative impacts from Klamath dams include emotional trauma inflicted on tribal communities from catastrophes like the 2002 fish kill, when upstream water diversions for agriculture and poor water quality conditions culminated in a fish disease outbreak in the lower Klamath, with 34,000–78,000 adult salmon and steelhead dying without spawning [12,13].
Yet, moving from an era of dam building into a tribally led dam removal process brings new perspectives for Indigenous water governance and hydrosocial relations in the Klamath Basin. Over the last twenty years, tribal leaders and their allies have persistently demanded the removal of four hydroelectric dams in the mid-Klamath. As of July 2024, these four dam reservoirs have been drained, the river has returned to its original channel, and removal of dam infrastructure is underway. Watershed restoration is ongoing and will continue for years to come [14] (see Figure 1). We note that mid-Klamath dam removal is not a cure-all: conflict over water allocations in the Klamath Basin remains a challenge, and two upper basin dams constructed with fish ladders will continue to regulate water releases from Upper Klamath Lake into the Klamath River. At the same time, Klamath dam removal represents a transformational moment for Indigenous self-determination and Klamath water governance.
The backdrop for Karuk participation in Klamath dam removal includes Indigenous resistance to colonial dispossession of Karuk lands and resources, state-sanctioned violence, and forced assimilation. Because the US government never ratified treaties negotiated with the Karuk people, the Karuk Tribe has been largely excluded from land and water management decisions affecting Karuk aboriginal territory, an area of 1.048 million acres (Figure 2). While the Karuk Tribe is federally recognized and is the second largest tribe in California, the tribe does not have a reservation (although it does have a number of trust parcels). Located in the mid-Klamath, downriver from dam removal areas, 98% of Karuk aboriginal territory overlaps with areas that are designated as National Forest and are administered by the US Forest Service. These conditions have contributed to intensive natural resource extraction that has negatively impacted Karuk people and traditional foodways in the mid-Klamath, including impacts from industrial-scale mining, clear-cut forestry, and dam construction for hydroelectric power [15,16,17,18,19,20,21]. Environmental exploitation and racialized violence are deeply connected to the removal of Karuk people from their aboriginal territory. This includes state support for militias that destroyed many Karuk families and villages [15,22]. It also includes the forced assimilation and relocation of Karuk family members through boarding schools that rejected Indigenous ways of being: language, ceremony, and Indigenous management practices like cultural burning [20,23,24].
This research builds on existing scholarship documenting the inextricable connections between Klamath ecosystems and Indigenous communities that have been negatively impacted by Klamath dams that include the Karuk Tribe, as well as the Yurok Tribe, the Klamath Tribes, the Hoopa Valley Tribe, the Quartz Valley Indian Reservation, the Resighini Rancheria, the Shasta Indian Nation, and others. These impacts are well described, for example, in John Salter’s context statement on Klamath dam removal [1], Thomas King’s cultural riverscape report [25], Mike Belchik’s report with Dave Hillemeier and Ronnie Pierce on the 2002 Klamath fish kill [12], and Kari Norgaard’s altered diet report with Ron Reed [9,10]. Events leading up to dam removal, and its broader political context, are also well documented [8,11,20,21,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34].
Our study extends this body of research by analyzing focus groups and interviews with tribal community members conducted during the six months leading up to the demolition of the Klamath dams. Through a collaborative research partnership with the Karuk Tribe, we explored the significance of dam removal for the Karuk Tribal community at a transformational moment, as tribal community members are achieving long-held community aspirations after twenty years of advocacy. This momentous shift leads us to ask: how does one’s understanding of Klamath dam removal change when viewed from the perspective of Karuk Tribal community members? What are the possibilities for biophysical and sociopolitical changes that can occur when tribes like the Karuk occupy a leadership role in water governance? How can Karuk knowledge and experience regarding Klamath dam removal potentially change conceptions of Klamath River restoration and of other prospective dam removals?
Findings emphasize and explore Karuk concepts of eco-cultural revitalization as an umbrella concept that describes the social and political significance of dam removal for Indigenous-led river restoration. Extending beyond a focus on infrastructure removal or single-species restoration, we consider how Indigenous environmental relations and cosmologies are embedded in dam removal and river restoration. In doing so, we gain greater understanding of Karuk experiences and expectations for dam removal and consider possibilities for restorative justice [35]. Acknowledging that the Karuk Tribe is characterized by a diverse set of community members holding different experiences and knowledge, we focus here on the central ideas emerging from focus groups, interviews, and survey responses from Karuk Tribal community members. Further analysis of survey findings is taken up elsewhere [36].
1.1. Diverse Roles of Tribes in US Dam Removal
Previous research exploring tribal involvement in US dam removals has documented the diverse roles that tribes play in renegotiating river restoration and dam removal. For example, Fox et al. (2022) compiled a database of thirty cases of dam removal involving tribes in the US, and conducted a detailed analysis of dam removals on the Ottaway, Penobscot, and Elwha Rivers involving the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, Penobscot Indian Nation, and Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, respectively [37] (pp. 13–14). This research traced novel political alliances emerging through tribal leadership on dam removal. Case analysis also highlighted the spiritual and cultural significance of rivers for tribal communities—documenting how Indigenous worldviews and self-determination initiatives become more visible through the dam removal process to change “how we understand and live with rivers” [37] (p. 36).
Previous research on tribal involvement in dam removal has taken a restorative justice approach, as with Middleton Manning’s (2023) research on the Native Village of Eklutna’s experience with removing a lower dam on the Eklutna River in Dena’ina Athabascan territories of southcentral Alaska. Applying an environmental justice lens, Middleton Manning writes, “current deliberations informing the mitigation and management of the Eklutna River must foreground Dena’ina histories and ways of knowing in order to address the historical and ongoing injustices of de-watering a Dena’ina river” [38] (p. 4). On the Elwha River in Washington, Mauer’s (2020) study of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s dam removal experiences emphasizes how traumatic memories associated with dam building and harmful impacts on tribal cultures persist alongside community visions for river restoration [39]. These examples emphasize the importance of centering Indigenous ways of knowing and understanding colonial histories to set the stage for tribal leadership in dam removal and potential restorative justice outcomes [37,38,39].
1.2. Indigenous Knowledge Systems: Reciprocal Relations for Collaborative Care
Key principles underlying examples of tribal leadership in dam removal can be expressed through the concept of reciprocal relations, or the mutual caretaking between people and place [40]. Starting from Indigenous knowledge systems, this concept reflects place-specific relations that facilitate collaborative land care [41,42,43,44,45,46]. Here, reciprocal relations are rooted in Indigenous cosmologies, where responsibilities to place are directed by, and realized through, spiritual beliefs and practices [47,48,49,50,51].
A reciprocal relations framework emphasizes community agency such that communities themselves are fulfilling responsibilities for caretaking their lands [40,46,52,53]. This approach envisions Indigenous leadership in land stewardship with Indigenous community members engaging in on-the-ground caretaking activities, such as coppicing, gathering, and cultural burning [19,43]. Scholarship further documents the importance of rebalancing resources and power relations in land management to enable greater Indigenous leadership in restoration [52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60].
Such reciprocal relations concepts intersect with scholarship on human–environment relations, explored through the fields of science and technology studies and political ecology, that challenge the separation of “natural” and “social” processes, e.g., [61,62,63]. Concepts of natureculture or socionature challenge utilitarian Western knowledge traditions legitimizing the separation of humans and non-humans, and “naturalizing” social and political decisions that harm communities and the environment [64,65,66,67,68]. Natureculture approaches emphasize the co-constitution of reciprocal human and non-human relations [63,69], as with concepts of hydrosocial relations, where hydrological systems and sciences are understood to be bound up with human societies and politics [70,71,72,73]. This line of research embraces the political and cultural aspects of Indigenous water relations, including discussions of Indigenous politics of water and hydrosocial kinship [58,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82].
1.3. A Starting Place for Eco-Cultural Restoration and Revitalization
In the Karuk watershed management context, eco-cultural restoration and revitalization are key terms used to apply Karuk ideas of reciprocal relations to landscape-scale environmental restoration in the Klamath Basin. Eco-cultural revitalization is rooted in the experience and knowledge of Indigenous communities and can refer to restoring and revitalizing dynamic ecosystems and human cultures together as interconnected processes that are continually evolving and adapting [83]. Eco-cultural restoration and related terms like bio-cultural restoration describe Indigenous restoration initiatives in the Klamath with the Karuk Department of Natural Resources (Karuk DNR) and beyond, as in the White Mountain Apache’s Tribal Watershed Program in Arizona, US [46], the Xaxli’p Community Forest eco-cultural restoration planning initiatives in British Columbia, Canada [84], Ngai Tahu’s eco-cultural restoration of the Waitaki Catchment in New Zealand [85], and elsewhere [41,86].
To provide further context, Karuk DNR Director of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy, Bill Tripp, emphasized that he does not support a single or finite definition for “eco-cultural revitalization” but rather sees the term as an expression of Karuk oral tradition, which adapts to context, invites multiplicity, and is best understood with interpretation by tribal community members. As Tripp shared, “When I use the word I mean revitalizing our human connections and responsibilities to the land, the animals, the plants, the water, each other, and the spirit world. It may mean something more broad, or more narrowly focused to any individual” (pers. comm. Bill Tripp, 18 July 2024). Traditional dipnet fisherman and ceremonial leader, Ron Reed, characterized the term as “another way of describing Indigenous sovereignty in Western science”, and emphasized that it is Karuk identity as a whole that is most important.
While Indigenous restoration practices are rooted in particular places, cultural contexts, and histories, scholars have identified general principles of eco-cultural restoration [86]. Eco-cultural restoration concepts seek to “overcome the artificial divide between culture and nature, or between humans and the environment, and to reinforce collaboration between indigenous knowledge and western science” [85] (p. 99). In this context, cultural and natural resources are “managed relationally across multiple spatial and temporal scales” [26] (p. 248, emphasis added). The term conveys the need to “put human history and culture back in nature” and recognize Indigenous stewardship traditions [87] (pp. 30). It conveys collective action moments where Indigenous peoples are strategically shifting trajectories for complex ecological and cultural landscapes [88]. Shifting from “restoration” to “revitalization” emphasizes how Indigenous cultures and landscapes are always evolving, not frozen in time, and that communities may be relearning or adapting traditions within new sociocultural or biophysical contexts [86,89,90].
Here, Indigenous land management is in conversation with ecological restoration, a human-centered practice that includes individuals and groups setting goals to define how and why people may choose to restore or revitalize a place to a different condition [91]. Yet starting from Indigenous knowledge systems emphasizes psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions of watershed restoration that are relevant to Indigenous communities [46,92,93]. In this context, restoration decisions are rooted in Indigenous cosmologies and kincentric relationships held between people and place—relationships that are rooted in ideas of equality and relationality, such that humans work with plants and animals [41,88,94,95]. With this approach, intended outcomes of Indigenous-led restoration include ecological and cultural survival as fully interconnected and relational processes [26,87].
1.4. Engaging Karuk Knowledge Systems in Environmental Restoration: Eco-Cultural Restoration in Watershed Analysis and Beyond
To highlight historical context for Karuk eco-cultural restoration, we recall the mid-1990s when Karuk Tribal leaders invited restoration practitioner Dennis Martinez (O’odham/Chicano/Anglo) to join them in writing the 1995 Karuk Tribal Module for the Main Salmon River Watershed Analysis, together with Cultural Solutions consultant Rob Winthrop, tribal archaeologist John Salter, tribal resource specialists Norman Goodwin and Harold “Littleman” Tripp, and the Karuk Department of Natural Resources Director Leaf Hillman. Remembered as a founding member of the Indigenous Peoples’ Restoration Network (IPRN) and a contributor to the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, the late Dennis Martinez was a strong proponent of eco-cultural restoration [94,96]. Recalling the challenges of early attempts to bring Indigenous knowledge into ecological restoration in the mid-1990s, Martinez writes “we couldn’t have filled a small room with people interested in hearing about this type of work” [88] (p. 88).
The Main Salmon River Watershed Analysis was one of the first occasions when the US Forest Service invited the Karuk Tribe to participate in agency planning processes [26]. Importantly, the 1995 Karuk Tribal Module critiqued previous US Forest Service planning for overlooking Karuk knowledge and governance authority [19,78]. The Karuk Tribal Module flatly rejected water management approaches that failed to include Indigenous value systems and cosmologies. Report authors viewed the Karuk Tribal Module as an important intervention that “lays out a Karuk watershed stewardship ethic” within the policy process [87] (p. 252). Authors emphasized the need to “integrate the natural and cultural dimensions of life” and to recognize how the Salmon River landscape “exists within a specific historical trajectory”. Authors further recommended that the Forest Service adopt “Karuk ancestral lands and people as [a] reference ecosystem for eco-cultural restoration” [87] (pp. 13–14).
This approach is based on Karuk knowledge systems and World Renewal ceremony, guiding Karuk people to take on ethical responsibilities towards stewarding the place that they come from. As Karuk anthropologist and basketweaver, Carolyn Smith, writes (2016), “Karuk peoples have the responsibility to care for the land, the plants, the animals, and the waterways because they understand that they are in-relation-with the world… Actively caring for self, communities, ecosystems, and really the whole world, is the underlying principle of pikyav (to-fix-it). Karuk peoples are ‘fix the world’ peoples, and what this means is that they have a deeply rooted responsibility to repair and restore social, cultural, and ecological relationships” [24] (pp. 6–7). Tribal scholar and ceremonial leader Julian Lang further expresses the importance of ceremony in fixing the world, “It is believed that the ceremony creates ecological balance within the Karuk world. It rids the earth of ill health, suffering (the chronic pain of elders was specifically prayed for), drought and famine. Thus, the waters of the ‘world’ are cleansed, the all important Spring and Fall salmon runs are beckoned forth as is the equally important acorn harvest. It assures a plentitude of plant and animal foods. It is also the time when the People convene to reconnect with the Earth, and recommit to ancestral knowledge, original purpose, and to social harmony” [97] (p. 8).
As an example of bringing traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) into contemporary land management, Karuk Tribal leaders have brought principles of pikyav, including its spiritual components, into current ecological restoration initiatives. Early applications of this approach have been well demonstrated through the Karuk Tribal Module (1995, p. 19): “Karuk people have long been known as the “fix the world” people for their ‘pik-yo-wish’ or world renewal ceremonies. Restoration is a practical extension of that responsibility of caregiving and world renewal” [87]. These ideas are further reflected in the 2010 Karuk Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Eco-Cultural Resources Management Plan (ECRMP) [17,89]: “As guardians of our ancestral land, we are obligated to support practices that emphasize the interrelationships between the cultural and biophysical dimensions of ecosystems. The relationships we have with the land are guided by our elaborate religious traditional foundation. For thousands of years, we have continued to perform religious observances that help ensure the appropriate relationship between people, plants, the land, and the spirit world. We share our existence with plants, animals, fish, insects, and the land and waters. We are responsible for their well-being”, as quoted in Norgaard (2016) [89] (p. 140).
Currently, the Karuk Tribe continues to build on its eco-cultural restoration and revitalization strategies, where whole eco-cultural systems are “part of a historically-specific, culturally patterned relationship between land and people” [87]. In some cases, eco-cultural resources may be cultural keystone species that have a particularly strong influence on Karuk life [98]. More recently, the Karuk Tribe has expanded its use of eco-cultural restoration and revitalization into forest co-management [19], tribal food security initiatives [89,99], water governance [21,26], and the reintroduction of prescribed and cultural fire [90,100,101,102]. Several Karuk Tribal resource managers have applied the language of eco-cultural revitalization to their job titles, such as Cultural Biologist, Eco-Cultural Restoration Specialist, and Director of Eco-Cultural Revitalization, and the Karuk Tribe is currently allocating resources from its Endowment for Eco-Cultural Revitalization Fund to support tribal restoration.
2. Methods
Our assessment design was rooted in principles of Indigenous and community-engaged methodologies that center Indigenous perspectives, knowledges, practices, and belief systems in research [103,104,105,106]. We conducted this assessment at a key moment, with dam removal finally coming to fruition in summer 2023 after two decades of tribal leadership. Data collection occurred in the six month period before demolition. We note that research was carried out after dam relicensing and removal decisions had already taken place, following extensive and legally obligated assessment, environmental review, and regulatory permitting processes. Thus, our study is intended as a forward-looking analysis that considers Karuk knowledge and community expectations around Klamath dam removal and river restoration.
Our interdisciplinary research team included Karuk cultural practitioners, Karuk DNR staff, and researchers based at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. Team members contributed diverse expertise in fisheries and cultural resource management, watershed management and water quality sciences, wildlife management, water governance, and youth engagement. Several academic and tribal research partners have been working on collaborative research and writing together for 15 years: Dr. Sibyl Diver and Dr. Daniel Sarna-Wojcicki both started working with Karuk Tribal partners in 2009 through the Karuk Tribe–UC Berkeley Collaborative, a tribal–academic partnership that supports synergistic partnerships for Karuk eco-cultural revitalization.
Ron Reed is a Karuk Tribe member, traditional dipnet fisherman, ceremonial leader, and co-founder of the Karuk Tribe–UC Berkeley Collaborative. Dr. Diver now works at Stanford University, where she teaches in the Earth Systems Program and conducts community-engaged research on Indigenous water governance. Dr. Sarna-Wojcicki, previously at UC Berkeley, now works with the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Program as a policy and communications consultant. John R. Oberholzer Dent is a biologist on staff with the Karuk Tribe’s Water Quality Program, working on dam removal and aquatic ecology. Cole Dill-De Sa joined the team as an Earth Systems Program student at Stanford.
The impetus for this research was a February 2020 Klamath Dam Removal Science and Monitoring Technical Co-ordination Workshop organized by Klamath, Karuk, and Yurok Tribal representatives and scientists in Medford Oregon, where Karuk Department of Natural Resources representatives invited academic research partners to help address a research gap on the social dimensions of dam removal.
Team members then designed the project in 2020–2021 through a year-long scoping and planning project with Karuk Tribe collaborators. Planning occurred with Karuk Tribal staff and community members across the three Karuk Tribal Council Districts: Orleans (Panámniik), Happy Camp (Athithúfvuunupma), and Yreka (Kahtishraam). To initiate this collaborative process, research team members wrote a planning grant received by the Karuk Tribe to support tribal participation in research design. We received tribal approval to begin research through the Karuk Tribe’s Pikyav Protocol in August 2022. Thereafter, the study was approved by the Stanford University IRB, eprotocol #67046, on 30 September 2022.
From November 2022 to May 2023, we conducted focus groups and interviews with 55 individuals and discussed Karuk community goals, attitudes, and reflections regarding Klamath dam removal (30 participants for adult focus groups, 21 participants for youth focus groups, and 4 participants for interviews). This included 8 focus groups including between 4 and 11 members from all three Karuk Tribal districts (Orleans, Happy Camp, and Yreka). Focus group participants included cultural practitioners, basketweavers, fisherpeople, tribal council members, ceremonial leaders, Karuk Tribe and Karuk Department of Natural Resources staff, and tribal youth leaders, as well as key informant interviews with cultural practitioners, fisheries experts, and consultants.
We also created and distributed an online survey to all enrolled Karuk Tribe members and descendants. We notified the Karuk community of the survey by sending postcards with links and QR codes to all 7785 adult tribal members and descendants (as identified by the Karuk Tribe Enrollment Department in February 2023), and posting on the Tribe’s official Facebook page. The survey yielded 238 “high quality” (not spam) tribally-affiliated responses representing a diverse set of geographies, genders, ages, incomes, and levels of education. This paper includes a qualitative analysis of short-answer text responses from the survey, with the majority of survey results presented elsewhere [36].
Focus group design was similar to purposeful and snowball sampling, but is better described as “relational sampling” [103]. Researchers drew on established relationships to identify key players and Karuk knowledge holders who could then invite others. These focus groups blended Indigenous and Western qualitative methods to align with Karuk community protocols and ways of knowing [107]. Participants and researchers sat in a circle, shared food, and discussed a series of questions inviting reflection on the impact and experience of dam removal for Karuk people, as well as Karuk community goals for dam removal outcomes. These questions often led to extended discussion and connections to other topics initiated by participants, leading to a rich collection of stories and insights connecting the many dimensions of dam removal. Working from Indigenous storywork methodologies that describe how varying degrees of closeness in relationships facilitate mutual understanding, we facilitated discussion based on the individuals present [108,109]. We sought to construct knowledge dialogically, encouraging the influence of participants on the direction of the conversation [103,110].
Including youth focus groups was a central goal for our study—a priority that reflected Karuk values and acknowledged the outsized impact dam removal will have on this generation. In our approach, we sought to recognize youth as full participants, agents, and intellectuals within their community [111]. Focus groups considered youth as authorities of their own experiences and were held with care to diminish barriers between researchers and participants. They also included tribal education staff and parents as observers who helped reframe questions, encourage the youth, and, at times, contributed their own experiences. Partway through each focus group, we invited the youth to pose questions to the researchers, thereby flipping the facilitation dynamic. This methodological inversion encouraged participation, built rapport, and empowered youth to direct the conversation.
Different members of the team approached the same research material using complementary methodologies. Data was alternately coded through NVivo with deductive analysis and inductive analysis using a grounded theory approach [112], or listened to in full and interpreted as a story [113]. While the former is effective in compiling and analyzing a large amount of data, this procedure can result in a loss of information and erasure of voice [114,115]. The latter considers the flow of the conversation, the tone of voice, context within narratives or stories being shared, and the greater meanings that are built collaboratively during the focus group [116].
3. Results
The following sections describe central goals for dam removal expressed by the Karuk Tribal community, where Karuk knowledge systems recast dam removal as an eco-cultural revitalization initiative. Drawing on a diverse set of research participants, including Karuk Tribal youth and adult community members in three Tribal Council Districts in the Klamath Basin and others dispersed across the US, we found the majority of Karuk community members in this study supported dam removal and believed it would lead to improvements to their lives [36]. Variation in responses was observed around community views on the complexity of social and environmental issues in the Klamath and misinformation circulating about dam removal.
Importantly, three interconnected themes emerged from focus groups, interviews, and surveys that expressed the deeper meaning of dam removal for the Karuk Tribal community members in this study: (1) advancing holistic eco-cultural revitalization, (2) revitalizing ceremony, spiritual practices, and cultural identity for Karuk people, and (3) creating opportunities to engage the Karuk Tribal youth in river restoration. Alongside this analysis, Karuk research team members emphasized the importance of retaining a historical perspective of the colonial legacies of Klamath dams, as well as recognizing Karuk experiences with, and resistance to, state-sanctioned violence and intergenerational trauma.
The Karuk Tribal community is diverse, and while an overwhelming majority of research participants supported dam removal, some had reservations. Dam removal concerns raised by study participants included excessive sediment release, toxicity, loss of recreation opportunities, impacts to fisheries, loss of power supply, flooding, and dewatering of the river. While some of these concerns are legitimate, others are based on misinformation and have since been debunked (e.g., power sources have been replaced, water releases will continue to be regulated in the upper basin, and sediment releases are not expected at levels that impair salmonid life cycles) [117]. Yet, in the months leading up to demolition, we found that many community members had not received sufficient information to address their questions about dam removal impacts [36].
We found greater levels of uncertainty and misinformation about dam removal in Council Districts where Karuk community members directly encountered political backlash to dam removal. For example, Yreka community members reported experiencing direct racism related to dam removal politics, with some afraid to speak publicly about dam removal due to retaliation (e.g., getting fired from a job). As Florrine Super (Kahtishraam Wellness Center Director and basketweaver) explained, “Not all Natives feel comfortable talking about it or being at a meeting because of what can happen in that outside world”.
Some expressed their concerns in the context of tradeoffs, or “short-term pains for long-term gains”: Renee Stauffer (basketweaver and Tribal Council member at the time of the study) reflected, “And the sediment coming down, that’s going to be short-term anyway. I mean eventually, the river will clean it all out. I mean, there’s going to be a lot of that initially, you know, as they take the water out of the reservoir. It’s just something that we’ll have to live with if we want it to get healthy again”.
Others discussed reservations around what can realistically be expected from dam removal outcomes, and emphasized that dam removal is not a cure-all. While expressing excitement for the project’s restoration potential, they pointed out challenges beyond dam construction, including water diversions for agriculture, groundwater pumping, cannabis cultivation, disconnection of floodplains, land tenure challenges, private property preventing community river access, catastrophic wildfire, and limitations on efforts to restore Indigenous fire regimes. Individuals emphasized the importance of engaging with these issues alongside dam removal. Bill Tripp (Karuk DNR Director of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy) reflected on the broader political economy around Klamath Basin water allocations, “What’s going on in my mind right now is how water is going to be managed post dam removal and what that will mean for the survival of the salmon in the Klamath Basin. You know… one of the things that I didn’t really see in this paperwork is that connection to how ag[riculture] interests and tribal interests are going to… get sorted out. In regards to how we can ensure salmon are going to live in our future”.
3.1. Central Goals for Dam Removal: (1) Advancing Karuk Eco-Cultural Revitalization
First, Karuk community members in our study strongly emphasized Karuk eco-cultural revitalization and the interconnections between ecological and cultural elements of dam removal as a holistic restoration initiative. After watching the successful return of salmon following the Elwha River dam removal in Washington [118], many Karuk cultural practitioners are hopeful about Klamath dam removal outcomes that lead to the successful regeneration of eco-cultural linkages—where restoring impaired biophysical processes simultaneously helps restore Karuk eco-cultural practices.
Many focus group participants spoke to the long history of Karuk people living in relation with the river and their witness of ecological decline. Reflecting the importance of a healthy ecosystem for Karuk people, many participants discussed the importance of bringing back a free-flowing river, healthy salmon runs, and access to additional cultural resources that stand to benefit from dam removal (e.g., food and medicine plants, and basketweaving materials). As tribal community members commented in survey responses: “Dam removal will bring clean water and salmon back to the tribal lands”, “Fish gotta live”, and “Bring the salmon home”!
Given interdependencies between healthy ecosystems and the health of Karuk people, conversations around salmon restoration flowed into discussions of what it means to revitalize a place-based culture. Multiple respondents described the Klamath River as a home place that holds the cultural and family heritage of the Karuk Tribe. One of the most important elements of dam removal expressed by Karuk people is the opportunity for revitalizing place-based connections to the river that reconnect community members and their families to their Karuk ancestry. Survey respondents stated, for example, “It’s my home and connection to my family”, “The river is the lifeline to the native population and is part of our history”, and “My mother’s ashes are there [in the river]. And I will meet her there when I move on”. Ron Reed emphasized how salmon restoration can facilitate cultural continuity, “People want to come down to the river when the salmon are running—it revitalizes the sense of being” (see Figure 3).
3.1.1. Eco-Cultural Revitalization: Healing the River to Heal the People
Research participants often discussed how their cultural identity is rooted in an embodied relationship to the river, physically, spiritually, and metaphorically. They described how reconnecting people and the river was essential for Karuk people: healing the river was understood to be equivalent to healing the people. A number of individuals spoke of the river as the “life blood” of the Karuk people—as Ron Reed declared, “What is the glue that brings the spirit of the Karuk together? The river is the lifeblood of that story”! Likewise, Arron “Troy” Hockaday (Tribal Council member) commented, “They have to come out. Like I told people here earlier, it’s like cleaning my arteries because those dams are clogging my arteries, that the Klamath River is my blood”. Demonstrating how much is at stake for many Karuk people with dam removal and river restoration, one survey respondent commented, “I would die to save the River”.
While some focus group participants recognized the uncertainty that remains around fully achieving the desired outcome of dam removal, including the length of time that may be required to improve river health, all participants spoke to the immense restoration potential of dam removal for the community. Ron Reed explained, “When we’re not doing those [eco-cultural practices] we’re not as healthy, well, as you’d like to be, not as proud. We’re not handing off that information that was given to us by our elders. We’re not handing it off to our babies so they can move into this life happy, you know, without any worries. So that’s the reason why we’re here today is connecting our non-human relation to human relation to create that lifestyle”. Sammi Jo Jerry (cultural practitioner) stated, “I see it as being able to bridge with people within our community”, and later added, “It’s a teaser that there is a possibility we can bring back a society that was potentially lost due to colonization”.
With salmon historically providing an important source of nutrition, social cohesion, and cultural identity for Karuk people, salmon decline has eroded community health at multiple levels. The impacts of the dams include not only the loss of healthy diet and exercise associated with subsistence use (including fishing, eeling, hunting, and gathering of food, medicine, and basket materials), but also emotional and spiritual distress and social dysfunction [119]. Some participants expressed a loss of self-worth, depression, and feeling a lack of agency to restore river health. However, with dam removal, there is a potential for enabling self-fulfillment and healing in the community through the revitalization of cultural resources and their reciprocal relationships with Karuk people.
3.1.2. Eco-Cultural Revitalization: Ecological Factors Affecting Cultural Resources
One core aspect of dam removal is the biophysical changes that are expected to have long-term positive impacts on tribal access to cultural resources that depend on a healthy river ecosystem. A free-flowing river will help transform the former reservoir reach into a functional ecosystem once again. As ecosystem processes that support Karuk cultural management practices recover, many Karuk community members expect to see synergistic improvements to environmental and human health in their community.
Speaking from their expertise in both Western scientific knowledge and Karuk traditional ecological knowledge, some focus group participants shared their knowledge of how free-flowing river processes affect Karuk cultural resources (see Figure 4). Participants also shared their frustration with previous dismissals of embodied knowledge around Karuk eco-cultural practices in a dominant system that often trivializes Indigenous ways of knowing, and wished for more respectful tribal engagement, as reflected by this tongue-in-cheek exchange between two basketweavers: “We’re not no scientists, we’re basketweavers. We know where the river is”, remarked Wilverna “Verna” Reece, (basketweaver and teacher), and “We know what the plant looks like. We know how to gather it”, replied Deanna Marshall (basketweaver).
As participants discussed the kinds of improvements to cultural resource access they are looking for, they communicated how dam removal for the Karuk community is more than a fisheries restoration project. Rather, participants expressed their hope that the entire ecosystem would benefit from dam removal, including human communities living in relation with the river. Restoration focused on single-species management runs counter to the interconnectivity and relationality centered in Karuk TEK, and has consequences for Karuk eco-cultural practices: Verna Reece explained one example, illustrating how restoration efforts could benefit from engaging with a broad set of cultural practitioners to ensure improvements for all forms of cultural resource use, including fisheries, basketweaving, and otherwise: “[If] they put willows in the river too much, [it will be] overplanted… What we got now is too much… That’s why you got so many bugs [making willow unusable]”.
Accordingly, focus groups expressed a range of desired and anticipated eco-cultural revitalization effects of dam removal. Based on ecological expertise and memories of different times, a number of participants described how interconnected biophysical and sociocultural processes that contribute to Klamath River and tribal community health can be restored. For example: (1) With regard to Karuk fisheries, healthy salmon and lamprey eel populations require open passage to the Upper Klamath Basin spawning grounds to promote successful reproduction and life history diversity. A free-flowing river promotes cool water temperatures and benefits from cold groundwater releases, reduces fish disease when high flows scour the riverbed where fish disease hosts live, and delivers gravel and fine sediment that enhance salmon and lamprey eel habitats. As important traditional foods, healthier salmon and lamprey populations, in turn, support Karuk subsistence fishing traditions, as well as ceremonial management. (2) Regarding culturally important plants, periodic flooding tears out old willow growth to make way for young, healthy willow stands that are suitable for basketweaving. Also, free sediment transport is important for the formation of sandbars in which roots used for weaving grow. (3) High-volume flushing flows transport large wood and rocks downstream, and provide materials used by the Karuk community for building structures and processing acorns, respectively. (4) A free-flowing river is resilient to harmful algae blooms causing impaired water quality prior to dam removal, which has negatively impacted Karuk ceremonial traditions and prevented community members from swimming in the Klamath mainstem. And (5) Karuk people also see eco-cultural revitalization opportunities in the river corridor arising from dam removal as intersecting with a broader array of Karuk upslope restoration strategies that include prescribed fire and cultural burning.
3.2. Central Goals for Dam Removal: (2) Grounding in Ceremony, Spiritual Practices, and History
Second, research participants highlighted how eco-cultural revitalization is grounded in the Karuk community’s goals for revitalizing ceremonies, spiritual practices, and cultural identity. The Karuk Tribe’s World Renewal ceremonies vest Karuk people with a set of responsibilities for actively stewarding the place that sustains them, both physically and spiritually, through reciprocal relationships [24,47,97]. It follows that focus groups with ceremonial and tribal government leaders reflected deeply on the broader spiritual context of dam removal. For example, survey respondents emphasized place-based ceremonial and spiritual practices that stand to be revitalized following dam removal: “I’m Karuk, upriver, I grew up fishing, swimming and playing along the Klamath. I attend tribal ceremonies where the river is considered sacred, and portions of ceremonies include bathing and swimming. So, yes, it is important like the air is important”.
In some years, the water quality in the mainstem Klamath has been so impaired that it has harmed ceremonial leaders performing their responsibilities; Robert “Bob” Attebery (Tribal Enrollment Officer and ceremonial leader) recalled, “I had to bathe in the river for ten days [for ceremony]. Well, one year the river was green, like bright green, and… sometimes when I swim, I get stuff in my ear or whatever. Well, my whole face swelled up like this and I had to go get a shot while I was still the priest. [I was] halfway through it before I had to go to the doctor and have him give me a shot of penicillin”. When the river is too unhealthy to properly perform ceremonies, this has significant negative impacts; a youth participant explained, “it’s like them losing a part of themselves when they [ceremonial leaders] can’t perform what the ancestors have done, like elders have done for years”.
3.2.1. Grounding in Ceremony: Colonial Legacies and Karuk Spiritual Practices
When ceremonial leaders and tribal government leaders met in focus groups, the conversation broached dam removal as part of a larger 200-year history of colonial dispossession and Karuk self-determination initiatives, which continue to shape the physical and spiritual worlds of Karuk people today. This includes forced assimilation efforts that made ceremonial practices illegal, as well as Karuk resistance to assimilation: Buster Attebery (Tribal Chairman) recounted how “We stayed put, but there was still that effort to come and take our children away to these boarding schools, mostly to Chemawa, and some even down to LA area, Sherman or Riverside. So it was a very difficult time. That’s why I always praise our elders who fought so hard to keep our ceremonies alive and well, because they had to hide out for a period of time to do that”.
Karuk concerns with dam removal extend far beyond a single form of exploitation and into a larger set of destructive practices imposed upon the land, water, and people (see Figure 5). Focus group participants discussed the trauma and sense of loss experienced from settlers disrupting Karuk spiritual practices, livelihoods, and interconnected ecological and cultural functions on the land. Settler-driven exploitation, through damming the river, mining, logging, boarding schools, and other ecological and social interventions has created large-scale imbalances that are reflected in both the physical and spiritual worlds that Karuk people depend on for their well-being. Reflecting on the legacies of this imbalance, Bob Attebery pointed out, “I’ve been blessed with… being recruited into traditional medicine, [which] has blessed me to be able to understand these types of ideas that we have lasted for 50, maybe 100,000 years, however long it was when time began. And now in those short 200 years… it’s a religious issue also”.
When discussing dam removal in this context, participants shared their vision for a life of abundance that nurtures a rich ceremonial life. In Karuk culture, revitalization of ceremony is connected to the revitalization of traditional Karuk foodways and caretaking practices, many of which are carried out along the river through active land management; Troy Hockaday explained, “I think by bringing the fish back and bringing back fire in the lands we can show them that… it’s going to bring everybody back together. It’s going to bring the ceremonies back stronger. It’s going to bring our people back stronger. And just in the last five years being home, I’ve seen things like our [World Renewal] dances at Inaam. Every year, we’re getting at least five more people to come to ceremonies. It seems like this year, and last year at the falls, there’s more people coming home. And I think it’s all due to those fish. And I think the fish know, I got a feeling the fish know, that we’re taking those dams out… Once those dams come out and the fish come home, it’s going to make a big difference… I just can’t wait”.
3.2.2. Grounding in Ceremony: Dam Removal as Tribal Response, Revitalization, and Healing
Focus groups conveyed how, at a fundamental level, dam removal is a transformative moment that facilitates spiritual alignment, enabling Karuk people to fulfill spiritual, moral, and ceremonial obligations for land stewardship, as described by World Renewal philosophy. In this way, dam removal is understood by Karuk leaders to be “righteous”, as described above by Bob Attebery: “Our people didn’t need a book to know how to be a good person. You know what I mean? It was about caretaking this place, taking care of your family or your children, being righteous in the process”. Thus, the years of Karuk advocacy through the Undam the Klamath campaign reflect and perpetuate the moral authority of Karuk people as caretakers of their lands and territories. Karuk ceremonial and spiritual responsibilities for watershed stewardship are also connected to the vision held by Karuk Tribal leaders of rebuilding a healthy economy grounded in Indigenous knowledge systems; Buster Attebery explained, “we need to educate the outside world on the Indigenous people’s way of relating to Mother Nature, why they have such a great relationship with [her], why they feel they’re related to the trees and the forests and the water and the mountains. And it’s because they took care of them… You need to think ecology first and the economy will follow, because if you don’t have a healthy ecological system, you don’t have any economy”.
In this way, dam removal facilitates an interconnected set of Karuk eco-cultural practices, all rooted in Karuk ceremonial traditions, foodways, and land management strategies, as expressed by Ron Reed, “I really look forward to those experiences for the basketweavers, for the fish. And then everybody’s talking about ceremony, because all of our food, all of our different things are just right around that ceremonial umbrella. And I think that the river is that, and fire is that lifestyle characteristic that we need as Karuk people. And it’s all interconnected. So the dam is like a small piece of it, but it’s the river, the landscape and all the different attributes of the lifestyle put together that makes us who we are. So that’s what we’ll be getting back. And hopefully it will restore the cultural lifestyle [and] intergenerational transfer of knowledge enough to where we can kind of get back to where we can live comfortably and not have to be consistently looking over our shoulder or question that we’re doing right or wrong”.
3.3. Central Goals for Dam Removal: (3) Centering Karuk Tribal Youth Engagement
Third, across surveys, focus groups, and interviews, research participants emphasized the importance of youth engagement in dam removal. Whether through eco-cultural practice and ceremony, or through swimming and family gatherings, youth focus group participants remain connected to the river and understand dam removal as a critical turning point in revitalizing the Klamath watershed and their heritage. Speaking for themselves, youth focus groups expressed their strong connection to the Klamath River, gratitude to their elders, and a desire to grow their commitments to river protection. We heard from adult participants how the Karuk community prioritizes its children, and that facilitating positive experiences that connect the youth to the Klamath River and Karuk place-based identities was extremely important. Dam removal also marks the legacy of a tribally led social movement that underscores Karuk self-determination and inspires Karuk youth.
Karuk Tribal community members consistently emphasized the value of creating opportunities for tribal youth involvement in dam removal and river restoration. This is because maintaining Karuk TEK for generations to come depends on Karuk people maintaining relationships with the river, in part through eco-cultural practices. At the same time, we heard that youth today face obstacles to gaining access to the river and place-based cultural practices that previously infused day-to-day Karuk life. For example, unlike many of their elders, this generation has never lived with a swimmable mainstem river—the ill health of the Klamath is their baseline condition. Therefore, their world stands to radically change as perpetuation of Karuk TEK becomes more possible with a healthy river that can support eco-cultural practice (such as preparing salmon for cooking on sticks as a traditional food preparation method) (see Figure 6).
3.3.1. Engaging Karuk Tribal Youth: Cultural Loss and Dam Removal Significance for Youth
Of particular concern is the cultural loss that is possible if Karuk youth do not receive instruction in place-based Karuk eco-cultural practices that rely upon and contribute towards a healthy river and a healthy tribal community: Scott Aseltine (Tribal Education Director) reflected, “I worry with my students and the younger people that I work with that they don’t really understand… how all of this could have magically worked, and the abundance. And how life revolved around the river and the salmon. So hopefully that will come back”. Ron Reed discussed his fears around the possibility of losing the ability to pass on eco-cultural practices that include distributing fish to elders: “Am I going to have a chance to teach my grandchildren how to take care of salmon? Or what it is to put them in a smoker, or can them, or take care of them, or give [them] to elders”. Survey respondents also discussed their worries: “I have been sad knowing that my Karuk Tribe has not been able to do traditional salmon fishing for many years. As a father, I wanted to participate in this to provide for my family and learn more about my culture. It is an oppressing feeling, and it worries me about the future generations of the native people to have such an important part of our Karuk culture dying away”. Another adult cultural practitioner reflected on how some young children no longer like the taste of fish, despite the fundamental role that salmon has historically played in Karuk life.
Young and old people alike looked to dam removal as an opportunity for eco-cultural revitalization because it can potentially facilitate positive relationship building between generations; one youth participant shared, “The dam removals will help my relationship to the river, and my dad”. Another stated, “I want my family, like I want my kids and my kids’ kids to be able to swim in the Klamath and go swimming in the clean water and stuff like that. And the medicine people [would] not have to bathe in waters like that”. The Karuk youth also appreciated dam removal as a motivating force that had brought the community together for collective action involving all generations of Karuk people in the Undam the Klamath campaign.
3.3.2. Engaging Karuk Tribal Youth: Youth Connections to the River Persist
Despite concerns expressed around maintaining Karuk eco-cultural practices, focus groups demonstrated that many Karuk youths have a strong relationship with the river; Scott Aseltine reported, “Our children, our students, they thrive on the river and on the creeks here. The confidence. You see it. It is most entertaining. There’s something spiritual, magical—just natural. Coming back to the instinctual that comes back on the river, and identifying all the things along the river, the animals and the birds. They’re really in tune with it”.
Youth reflected for themselves on how they currently engage with the Klamath River. Some recounted happy memories swimming, playing in the sand, watching otters, gathering willow, participating in fisheries science, rafting, and spending time on the river. Often, these memories were associated with family trips to the river, especially swimming; one youth reflected, “I’ve always swam in creeks and rivers my whole life like this. We go rafting. Most of the time I’m not in the raft, I just float alongside the raft in the river. We have this one spot when we go rafting where we jump off. I could spend hours just jumping off that spot”.
At the same time, most of the youth shared that they avoid swimming regularly in the Klamath mainstem river due to water pollution, in contrast to previous generations’ experience—although many still swim in creeks or tributaries to the mainstem Klamath. The ability for the youth to enjoy their interactions with the river was tempered by its obvious ill health: one youth participant explained, “In Happy Camp, there’s countless places to go swimming. But I don’t like swimming. Like no one likes swimming in the river because it’s never cold or what you want when you’re swimming. It’s warm instead of a cool-off spot. It’s gross”.
The youth attending focus groups were also aware of how ceremonial practices had been negatively impacted by dam construction, and the emotional and spiritual loss associated with these impacts. As one youth participant shared, “For my family, we’re really involved in our families’ [ceremonial practices] and stuff, and we talk about our medicine people—how they bathe in the river and the health of the river isn’t good. So it’s how they bathe. And like, we’ve loved rafting and kayaking our whole lives. And we can’t go swimming in rivers because it’s gross and warm. So we talk about stuff like that [among peer groups]”.
3.3.3. Engaging Karuk Tribal Youth: Dam Removal Campaigns as a Point of Youth Affirmation
Youth themselves have been actively involved in the Undam the Klamath campaign from the beginning, and have taken leadership roles in dam removal advocacy. Over the course of the campaign, an entire Karuk generation grew up participating in dam removal actions, and some are now working for the Karuk DNR or local non-profit organizations. The trajectory of these young Karuk community members reflects the changing conditions for Karuk youth and the possibility of intergenerational healing, despite the ongoing influence of colonial legacies. Parents and other adults working in youth education programs spoke about their experience seeing how field trips to the river that discussed dam removal had engaged tribal youth in a way school-based classes could not.
A key example of youth affirmation and youth leadership facilitated by dam removal is the annual Salmon Run. This event was started in 2003 by tribal youth in response to the 2002 fish kill, and has a ceremonial and spiritual foundation, upholding longstanding relationships connecting tribal peoples and salmon in the Klamath watershed [120]. Several youth focus group participants had taken part in the Salmon Run, and reflected: “It shows people how much it means and what we’ll do for it. And how many people care about this project [dam removal]”. The Salmon Run is one way that this generation is living in relation with salmon under current conditions of environmental decline, and provides a resounding statement on how this generation is positively impacting the world. Karuk leaders have pointed out the growing sense of agency and community held by Karuk Tribal youth: Chook-Chook Hillman (cultural practitioner and ceremonial leader) commented, “I think longer into the future. I’m looking forward to what the kids are gonna really feel powerful about, and what they’re gonna take on because a lot of them are being raised in, basically, a different world [from the previous generation]. Where their health and well-being is a main priority. And if they’re getting more and more good things in school and in their personal lives… they see what’s possible”.
4. Discussion
4.1. Recasting Dam Removal as Eco-Cultural Revitalization
Extending beyond engineering or ecological benefits, Karuk knowledge systems recast dam removal as an eco-cultural revitalization initiative, where biophysical changes resulting from dam removal are expected to revitalize Karuk eco-cultural and ceremonial practices that are predicated on a healthy environment. The lens of eco-cultural revitalization conveys how dam removal is a core process facilitating the revitalization of the Klamath watershed and Karuk cultural identity by reconnecting community members to the river, advancing Indigenous-led stewardship, and restoring river health. For many Karuk people, youth experiences with the dam removal process are foundational and provide a source of inspiration for younger generations to reconnect to the Klamath River. By encouraging Karuk community engagement with river restoration, dam removal enables intergenerational knowledge transfer around Karuk eco-cultural and ceremonial practices. This turning point for Klamath River restoration has created a new sense of hope for many Karuk community members, including possibilities for self-fulfillment, e.g., [121].
Eco-cultural revitalization further engages with dimensions of environmental justice that are closely bound up with Indigenous cosmologies [122]. Achieving dam removal enables Karuk community members to fulfill ceremonial commitments and stewardship responsibilities. If living with a degraded river is experienced by Karuk people as an “assault on one’s relations”, as previously expressed by Karuk descendent and fire ecologist, Dr. Frank Lake [20] (p. 215), then dam removal offers a possibility for healing—a reprieve from the assault. In this context, injustice takes on an insidious form, where resource exploitation in the form of dam construction affects “Indigenous peoples’ capacity to have moral relationships with nonhumans and the environment”, as previously stated by environmental justice leader and Potawatomi philosopher, Dr. Kyle Whyte, and discussed by Dr. Kari Norgaard [20,123] (p. 144). Thus, the act of dam removal is not only achieving a political win for the Tribe—it is lifting part of an immense emotional burden derived from Tribal community members being unable to fully realize inherent spiritual obligations for Klamath watershed stewardship [124,125].
Eco-cultural revitalization concepts help articulate how much is at stake for the Karuk Tribal community with Klamath dam removal. Viewed through Karuk Tribal perspectives, revitalization speaks to the life-giving nature of the dam removal process, which opens up new possibilities for community health, river health, tribal youth engagement, and cultural continuity through Indigenous-led river restoration and re-establishment of Karuk eco-cultural practices. Many Karuk people also see dam removal as a moment of restoration and repair, a positive response to histories of colonial dispossession and environmental impairment that celebrates Karuk survivance and resurgence.
4.2. Restorative Justice through Tribal Participation in Restoration
As demonstrated by the focus group analysis, Karuk goals for dam removal center on healing reciprocal relationships, revitalizing Karuk ceremonial and spiritual practices, and engaging tribal youth as a response to the disproportionate level of harm that tribal communities have experienced from Klamath dams and other colonial. Restorative justice in this case is not only about the revitalization of the salmon runs—it also involves the restoration of inherent caretaking responsibilities that are fulfilled through Karuk eco-cultural and ceremonial practices. It is through Karuk participation in on-the-ground land management, restoration initiatives, and ceremony that restorative justice can occur. This is also how intergenerational knowledge transfer, based on oral teachings and eco-cultural practices, can be re-established.
This leads us to ask the critical question: if one of the deepest injustices of the Klamath dams has been the undermining of Karuk reciprocal relations with the river, can dam removal facilitate restorative justice by helping to revitalize those relations? Will those leading dam removal and associated restoration initiatives work with the Karuk Tribe to effectively engage with eco-cultural revitalization as a primary goal? If so, what does it mean for a broader set of individuals and institutions to support the Karuk Tribe’s vision and participation in future river restoration?
Importantly, study findings reflect Karuk perspectives emphasizing the need for tribal community members to participate in eco-cultural revitalization activities through dam removal and river restoration. As expressed by Karuk community members, eco-cultural revitalization hinges upon self-actualization, where Karuk people are on the river and doing the work of restoration, or “fixing the world” themselves, in alignment with Karuk World Renewal philosophy. Given that Karuk Tribal community members have historically been excluded from land management decision-making [18,23], restorative justice requires creating on-the-ground experiences where Karuk community members can enact their culture and practice TEK, in part, by participating in river restoration [19,90]. As stated by Tribal leaders in the Karuk Tribal Module, “successful eco-cultural restoration depends on the inclusion of indigenous people who possess and use traditional environmental knowledge as ecosystem managers themselves” [87].
Looking beyond the technical aspects of dam removal, or single species restoration, these findings leverage Karuk knowledge systems and cosmology to recognize the potential for more holistic benefits from Klamath dam removal. Restorative justice requires that dam removal benefits flow out into the Karuk community in such a manner that they are relevant to the lives of community members. In this case, community benefits can be facilitated by Karuk participation in restoration initiatives, especially the participation of Karuk youth, and advancing the Karuk Tribe’s vision for eco-cultural revitalization in dam removal implementation. Thus, actionable steps that agencies, Tribal governments, restoration practitioners, scientists, non-profits, and other allied parties can take include:
- Supporting additional tribal youth programming on dam removal and river restoration;
- Creating more culturally relevant job opportunities that effectively reach tribal community members, including jobs for the Karuk Tribal community members and youth;
- Engaging with cultural practitioners and ceremonial leaders to more effectively bring Indigenous knowledge systems and tribal community priorities into restoration science, planning, implementation, and monitoring.
5. Conclusions
The concept of eco-cultural revitalization conveys what is at stake for Karuk people with Klamath dam removal and river restoration. At its core, Karuk eco-cultural revitalization concepts represent ecological and cultural survival as interconnected processes: protecting and revitalizing the Klamath watershed, including the Karuk people who have lived there and stewarded the land since time immemorial. Advancing eco-cultural revitalization includes maintaining the ability to teach Karuk knowledge to future generations, particularly eco-cultural and ceremonial practices. To accomplish this, Karuk people depend on our collective ability to sustain a healthy Klamath ecosystem that both supports and benefits from Karuk stewardship. Given expectations for improved river health, dam removal is viewed as a pathway for re-enabling Karuk eco-cultural revitalization, in part by facilitating intergenerational knowledge transfer and healthy relationships cultivated among community members and with the river.
At the same time, through the concept of pikyav, Karuk World Renewal ceremonies are understood to generate benefits that extend far beyond the Karuk Tribal community. By centering Karuk knowledge systems, this study demonstrates how Klamath dam removal supports deeply held ethical responsibilities and Karuk ceremonial traditions that are performed for the purpose of “fixing the world” for all human and non-human relations—not just for for Karuk people, but rather to support a broader project of co-existence and repair. With dam removal, Karuk people are now better positioned to fulfill their inherent stewardship responsibilities. In this transformative moment, the Karuk Tribal community and its allies are re-establishing ecological and sociopolitical conditions that can further Karuk eco-cultural and ceremonial practices, thereby enabling Karuk people to advance restorative justice and their traditions for restoring balance in the world.
Deeper recognition of what is at stake for Indigenous communities like the Karuk Tribe with dam removal and river restoration is needed for such forms of restorative justice to occur. This can be accomplished, in part, through allied relationships that have evolved through Klamath dam removal. The centrality of the river to Karuk life and the importance of engaging Karuk people, especially the youth, in eco-cultural revitalization initiatives cannot be underestimated as a foundational element of ongoing restoration and repair. Neither can the power of coming together in the spirit of fixing things that are broken, healing reciprocal relations between people and land, and realizing restorative justice.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, S.D., D.S.-W. and R.R.; Methodology, S.D., J.R.O.D., D.S.-W., R.R. and C.D.-D.S.; Software, J.R.O.D. and C.D.-D.S.; Formal analysis, S.D., J.R.O.D. and C.D.-D.S.; Investigation, S.D., J.R.O.D., D.S.-W. and R.R.; Data curation, S.D. and J.R.O.D.; Writing—original draft, S.D. and J.R.O.D.; Writing—review & editing, S.D., J.R.O.D., D.S.-W. and R.R.; Supervision, S.D.; Project administration, S.D.; Funding acquisition, S.D. and D.S.-W. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
This project received funding from the California Strategic Growth Council (SGC) through their Tribal Government Challenge, Planning Grant Program for the Karuk Tribe’s 2020 Áhish Áah (“turn on the light”) Project. Objective 3 of the grant laid out goals and objectives for the Klamath Hydroelectric Facility Removal Social-Economic Impact Assessment. Our team also received research funding from a Stanford University Sustainability Accelerator Grant through a collaboration with the Environmental Justice Working Group at Stanford in 2022.
Data Availability Statement
Datasets presented in this study are on file with the authors, and also held by the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources, but are not immediately available due to human research subject protections (Stanford University IRB, eprotocol #67046) and tribal research protocols. Requests to access datasets, protocols, or other research materials should be directed to the authors and Karuk Tribe research committee members.
Acknowledgments
We wish to first thank the Klamath River, the Karuk Tribe, and the Karuk Department of Natural Resources, especially its Water Quality Program. In addition, we are deeply grateful for each survey respondent and focus group participant who shared their experiences and expertise. We are honored to work in this place and with this community. Many tribal staff members made key contributions to the study design, and others helped organize the survey and focus groups. We thank our friend and colleague Carolyn Smith for her substantial contributions to the research design, focus group organization and implementation, communication materials, and her good company. Focus groups would not have been possible without many generous hosts: Scott Aseltine and the Karuk Youth Leadership Council, Florrine Super, Blythe Reis, Mark DuPont, and the Karuk Department of Natural Resources. This project would also not be complete without student team members Crystal Liu for the website and interview transcriptions, Nate Ramos for survey analysis and focus group support, Maria Ridgeway-Elsner for focus group support, and Ireland Sherrill for story map development. We also thank Cher Nomura for assistance with early literature review, and Chris Shell for support on economic analysis. For editing we thank Michelle Ng, and for enhancing helpful discussion points we thank Holly Doremus and Angeles Mendoza Sammat. Finally, we wish to acknowledge generations of Indigenous and allied leadership on eco-cultural restoration and revitalization, including Dennis Martinez, Leaf Hillman, Bill Tripp, Frank Lake, Ron Reed, Kari Norgaard, Jennifer Sowerwine, Tom Carlson, Herb Hammond, Art Adolph, Herman Alec, Melissa K. Nelson, and others.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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Figure 1.
Former Iron Gate reservoir after drawdown, 2024 (Photo: John R. Oberholzer Dent).
Figure 2.
Karuk aboriginal territory (purple area outlined in bold) and additional tribal lands are located in the mid-Klamath region, downriver from dam removal sites. They include areas around the towns of Yreka, Happy Camp, and Orleans (California and Oregon, US). (Map: Klamath River Renewal Corporation, Berkeley, CA, USA and the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources, Happy Camp, CA).
Figure 2.
Karuk aboriginal territory (purple area outlined in bold) and additional tribal lands are located in the mid-Klamath region, downriver from dam removal sites. They include areas around the towns of Yreka, Happy Camp, and Orleans (California and Oregon, US). (Map: Klamath River Renewal Corporation, Berkeley, CA, USA and the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources, Happy Camp, CA).
Figure 3.
Tribal leader and co-author Ron Reed dipnet fishing at Ishi Pishi Falls (Photo: Wingspan Media).
Figure 3.
Tribal leader and co-author Ron Reed dipnet fishing at Ishi Pishi Falls (Photo: Wingspan Media).
Figure 4.
Based on focus groups and interviews, this diagram shows a simplified model of selected biophysical factors associated with a free-flowing river that affect Karuk cultural resources (not comprehensive). While useful as a schematic, we note that the unidirectional flow of benefits does not represent how Karuk cultural practices, such as coppicing, cultural burning, and ceremony, also shape the system.
Figure 4.
Based on focus groups and interviews, this diagram shows a simplified model of selected biophysical factors associated with a free-flowing river that affect Karuk cultural resources (not comprehensive). While useful as a schematic, we note that the unidirectional flow of benefits does not represent how Karuk cultural practices, such as coppicing, cultural burning, and ceremony, also shape the system.
Figure 5.
Sunset over the Klamath River in Orleans, CA (Photo: Sibyl Diver).
Figure 6.
Cutting fish with youth for cooking on sticks at Ti Creek traditional foods workshop with Kenneth “Binks” Brink, Jason Reed, and Nate Pennington (Photo: Konrad Fisher).
Figure 6.
Cutting fish with youth for cooking on sticks at Ti Creek traditional foods workshop with Kenneth “Binks” Brink, Jason Reed, and Nate Pennington (Photo: Konrad Fisher).
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MDPI and ACS Style
Diver, S.; Oberholzer Dent, J.R.; Sarna-Wojcicki, D.; Reed, R.; Dill-De Sa, C. Recasting Klamath Dam Removal as Eco-Cultural Revitalization and Restorative Justice through Karuk Tribal Leadership. Water 2024, 16, 2295. https://doi.org/10.3390/w16162295
AMA Style
Diver S, Oberholzer Dent JR, Sarna-Wojcicki D, Reed R, Dill-De Sa C. Recasting Klamath Dam Removal as Eco-Cultural Revitalization and Restorative Justice through Karuk Tribal Leadership. Water. 2024; 16(16):2295. https://doi.org/10.3390/w16162295
Chicago/Turabian StyleDiver, Sibyl, John R. Oberholzer Dent, Daniel Sarna-Wojcicki, Ron Reed, and Cole Dill-De Sa. 2024. "Recasting Klamath Dam Removal as Eco-Cultural Revitalization and Restorative Justice through Karuk Tribal Leadership" Water 16, no. 16: 2295. https://doi.org/10.3390/w16162295
APA StyleDiver, S., Oberholzer Dent, J. R., Sarna-Wojcicki, D., Reed, R., & Dill-De Sa, C. (2024). Recasting Klamath Dam Removal as Eco-Cultural Revitalization and Restorative Justice through Karuk Tribal Leadership. Water, 16(16), 2295. https://doi.org/10.3390/w16162295
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